Only in Africa do you get ‘Arrested’ for….
Before I get to that part, let me give you a little bit of the background story…
We were invited to go along with some youth from our ministry, as well as another youth outreach called The Transkei Project. 50 of us traveled about 4 hours (3 of which were on the roughest and bumpiest road I think I’ve ever ridden on…) to the coast of Port St Johns to the Indian OceanJ. Even though we were kind of squished with people and our packs, we were blessed. Two of the trucks were filled with guys in the back of a truck with a camper shell. I think every inch of the back of the truck was packed with the guys and more camping stuff.
We all hiked a short trail on the beach and rocks to get to our ‘camp site’. It was basically a soccer field that had been a resting place for a bunch of local cows and bulls. When we got there, the cows were gone. But, if you can imagine, there were tons of piles of ‘presents’ left behind EVERYWHERE…..
For some of these kids, this was their first campout and first retreat. One of the girls brought a soccer ball and Frisbee which became their favorite thing to do. The next morning, we had breakfast, and packed a few things for our hike to the nature reserve and beach. We hiked and trekked about an hour, hour and a half up and down the cliffs and palm tree jungles. The view was unlike anything I’ve ever seen. It was like scenes from the show LOST, and Hawaii 5-0. It was almost untouched land. That made the difficult trek up and down super steep hills worth it. When we finally arrived on the beach to eat lunch and play on the beach and in the freezing cold Indian Ocean, it was amazing. The view was breath taking. The water was so blue, and the waves and rocks added the perfect touch. The palm trees added even more of a tropical touch. I stuck my feet in the freezing cold water and had my first feel of the Indian OceanJ.
About an hour later goes by, and while talking with Acosia (one the founders of the Transkei Project), we hear ‘Everyone needs to hurry and pack up!’ I paused for a minute trying to figure out what was going on, and Schaun (the other leader) says with almost a bit of humor in it ‘apparently we’ve all been ‘arrested’ and need to leave the beach immediately. I was like ‘what!? We’ve been arrested?? Haha’ OIA…Only In Africa… I guess the ‘park rangers’ don’t take arresting people super seriously, but we did have to pack up and leave immediately or I guess there really would be consequences. So, we gathered our things and started our hike back. We had to go another way because the tide had come up and would’ve made the beach and rocks part impossible. So we took another route. Along the way up, we ended up passing a Marijuana garden… It’s illegal here, but it doesn’t seem to be the main concern for the police.
It was a long and hard hike at times with the steepness of some of the hills, but the view at times made it so worth it. When we got back, we played a few card games, a few people fetched water, and a lot of the kids played soccer. We were able to have great bonding times. One thing that was crazy is that whenever we lit a bonfire, tons of local kids came, especially on the first night. The first night when we arrived, a lot of local kids walked with our group. Keep in mind that our group was 50 youth and leaders. So at one point, there were Tons of kids around our fire, so it got a little difficult when we started to cook dinner and we got looking around and we had double the amount of kids. But a few of our leaders sorted it all out……. Overall, it was an awesome weekend. We had the awesome opportunity to sing worship songs around the campfire, see the most amazing and breathtaking views of the beach and coastlines, hear the stories of the others, and hang out with an awesome group of South Africans and 6 other AmericansJ. Definitely a weekend to remember.
Brittany Johnston
U Squad
Team: RAJ
Port St. Johns, SA
07/14/2015
